They camped within sight of the forge, where a low bank sheltered the horses. Darr waited until his men had divided the food. Then he sat beside Selka and took her bowl out of her hands.
“Tell me.”
“Give that back.”
“After.”
She would have laughed at a lesser insult. Instead she looked at the square of light that was Tarin's door.
“You heard us.”
“I heard you say it could leave other parts. And this morning you came out from under the wreck looking like you'd been stabbed. I asked. You gave me a road.”
The god stood near the horses. They had stopped shying at it, but one sniffed its sleeve and jerked away whenever the water inside moved.
“It intends to go back to Harrowmere once it's free,” Selka said. “Take back the support. The barrier. The warmth. What's still keeping people alive.”
Darr remained still. Only his thumb moved, worrying the rough edge of her bowl.
“Kerr's leg,” he said. “They took him after the south bank. I never knew if it healed.”
“If it's healed, it's his. If it still needs help—”
“And you were going to let me find out there?”
She did not answer.
He set the bowl down between them. “My mother lives under the north ward. Last winter she wrote that she didn't need a coat indoors anymore. I've been proud of that. Proud that my pay could put her there.”
Selka had imagined his brother when thinking of his bargain. She had not imagined a mother, waiting with her coat on a peg.
“I'm sorry.”
“Don't translate that either.”
He stood and approached Ruun. Selka followed, afraid of what his hand might do before she could stop him.
“Ask it if it will leave my family alive.”
She translated. Ruun turned from the horse.
“You have a mother,” it said, in halting trade speech this time. “A brother. She has a daughter. Tarin has children. There are always more.”
Darr's hand closed at his side. “And you had someone.”
Ruun looked toward the forge. The light had gone out.
“Yes.”
The captain was silent long enough for a horse to nudge his back. He moved aside without noticing.
“If we stop now,” he said to Selka, “what happens?”
“The prisoners stay where they are. Voss sends men after us. The god stays chained.”
“If we kill it?”
He had not drawn his sword. She was grateful for that and sickened by being grateful.
“The man in the shrine,” she said. “His arm. The heat bowl. That happens without anyone choosing where it stops.”
Darr looked at Ruun's wounded ribs, then the stone finger. “And that?”
“A gift. It can't take it back.”
“So it could.”
“Yes.”
“But won't.”
Ruun's eyes met his. Selka did not soften the silence into anything else.
At last Darr picked up a broken length of harness and carried it toward the fire. He sat to mend it with the bent needle one of his men had lent him.
Selka sat across from him. Her bowl lay where he had left it. She took a mouthful of cold barley, unable to taste it.
“I'm not marching these men into another war on our way home,” he said. “I'm bringing my brother out. Then I'm finding out what can be saved.”
“I want the same.”
“You want your daughter.”
“Yes.”
He pulled the stitch tight. “Good. Start there when you speak to me. Not with peace.”
She watched the needle go in and out. He was clumsy with it, pricking his thumb, leaving the stitches uneven. But the strap came together under his hands.
Before she lay down, Selka checked the carriage. Ruun had put its stone finger on the temple step. The other fingers curved around the carved boat.
“We arrive tomorrow,” she told it.
It closed its eyes.